“Poor lad!” lamented the squire.
“Oh, dadda, what can I say to him?” grieved Janice.
“I know not, lass,” replied the father, as he hastened to leave the room.
It was a hard interview the girl had with Colonel Hennion, but she went through with it bravely, telling all the circumstances. “’T is not merely that I owe him the fulfilment of the promise I made him before that to you was given, Phil,” Janice ended, “but though I thought my love for him was dead, the moment I heard of how he had risked life and station to spare me grief; I—I—” There she ceased speaking, but her eyes and cheeks told eloquently what her tongue refused to put in words.
Philemon, with a sad face, took her hand. “I’ll not make it the harder for you by protests or appeals, Janice,” he said, “for, however it may pain me, I wish to spare you.”
“Oh, don’t, please,” she sobbed. “If you—if you would only blame me.”
“I can’t do that,” he replied simply. “And—and ’t is as well, perhaps. General Washington just sent me word that I am only to be treated as a prisoner of war, but even when I am exchanged I must henceforth be an exile, with only my sword to depend upon; so it would have been no life for you.”
“Oh, Phil, you’ll take back Greenwood and Boxely, won’t—”
“Only to have them taken by the state? Keep them, as I would have you, Janice, and if ever I am invalided, and the laws will let me, I’ll come back and ask you for Boxely, provided I can bear the thought of—of—of a life of rust. Till then God prosper you and good-by.”
For some time after Philemon left the room the girl wept, but by degrees the sobs ended, and she became calmer. Yet, as the tears ceased, some other emotion replaced them, for thrice, as she sat musing, her cheeks flushed without apparent reason, several times her brows wrinkled, as if some question were puzzling her; and once she started forward impulsively, some action determined, only to sink back, as if lacking courage. Suddenly she sprang to her feet, and, apparently afraid to give herself time for consideration, she ran, rather than walked, into the garden. Here she picked a single blossom from a rose bush, and such sprays of honeysuckle as she could find, and made them into a bunch. Kissing the flowers as if they were the dearest thing in the world, she hurried out of the garden, and glanced about. Seeing a soldier on the road, she hailed him and asked him whither he was going.